FALL RIVER — Mayor William Flanagan said Thursday he requested the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to allow city police officers to carry naloxone, a nasal spray that reverses heroin and other opioid overdoses.

Calling drug overdoses an important public health issue, Flanagan said he was looking to take a “proactive, lifesaving approach,” and he predicted that Fall River police officers could be equipped with naloxone — more commonly known as Narcan — within the next three to four weeks.

“Given the fact that our police department is often our first responders, they should be trained in the use of Narcan,” Flanagan said.

Narcan has gained renewed attention since a recent wave of fatal heroin overdoses has swept through several Massachusetts communities, including Taunton, where police have reported 67 heroin overdoses — five of them fatal — since Jan. 1.

Last month, officials announced that New Bedford police and firefighters will begin carrying Narcan. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh also said last week that he wants all first responders in Boston to carry the antidote.

Flanagan said the deadly heroin batch — which may be laced with another drug like Fentanyl — has not yet hit Fall River, though he noted that, locally, drug overdoses have increased in the past three years.

In 2013, Flanagan said the Fall River Police Department responded to 385 calls for drug overdoses, an increase from 351 overdose calls in 2012 and 335 calls in 2011.

“Opioid overdoses can affect anyone from a child who gets into his parents’ medicine cabinet, to a senior citizen who takes too much of their medication,” Flanagan said.

While the idea of equipping and training police officers with Narcan is still in the discussion stage, Fall River Police Chief Daniel Racine said his officers are often the first personnel to respond to a medical emergency.

“We understand our role and responsibility as first responders and see this as a positive initiative to save a human life,” Racine said.

Since 2007, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has run a pilot program in which 15 health and substance abuse agencies across the state distribute Narcan and train addicts, as well as their partners and relatives, on how to administer the antidote.

Through the same pilot program, agencies such as Seven Hills Behavioral Health, which runs the Narcan program in Fall River and New Bedford, also work to equip and train police departments with Narcan.

“The training takes place with the police department, and then we basically become the technical assistants and liaisons to the police departments,” said Connie Rocha-Mimoso, the HIV/AIDS and naloxone programs director for Seven Hills Behavioral Health.

Rocha-Mimoso said Fall River police officers would be trained on how to assess an opioid overdose, administer Narcan and immediately connect patients with medical providers. Rocha-Mimoso said she intended to contact the state DPH on Thursday to seek state approval, which she added is normally not a long process.

Page 2 of 2 - “We want to make sure that the training takes place, protocols are created and we want to make sure the police department has all the support from the state and Seven Hills to implement this,” she said.

The state DPH says Narcan has saved more than 2,000 lives in Massachusetts.

“(Narcan) can instantly reverse a heroin overdose and save lives. I think it’s wonderful,” said Nancy Paull, the CEO of Stanley Street Treatment and Resources in Fall River.

Paull said the number of needless addiction deaths is shocking.

“If that number of people were dying of any other disease, there would be a public outcry,” she said.

Paramedics and emergency medical technicians in Fall River have used Narcan since 1993 with “great results,” said Fall River EMS Director John Duclos.

“Narcan reverses the effects of an overdose just about immediately. It’s really spontaneous,” Duclos said. “If we can get to an overdose while the person is unconscious and their respiration is low, as long as they have a heartbeat, we can get them to come around. If the heart has stopped, then we have to go a couple of extra miles.”

Duclos said he would like to see Fall River EMS oversee the city police officers’ Narcan training because of the possible side effects if the antidote is not correctly administered.

“If it’s given too fast when the patient wakes up, they can get extremely sick, with a lot of vomiting,” Duclos said. “The other thing, if you give them too much, you can put someone into withdrawal symptoms. That’s why you give it in small dosages, small increments. All we want to do is get you breathing on your own again, get a good heartbeat. Otherwise, you could go into cardiac arrhythmia.”

If approved, Flanagan said the Fall River Police Department will need to draft policies and procedures before training its officers on Narcan. The mayor said the officers would carry the antidote in their first-aid kits, which are placed in every police cruiser.